Baldur's Gate: Ever After
by Pantalion
Summary: Over a hundred years after the saga ended, on the eve of the Sundering that will change the face of the Realms yet again, an embittered Bhaalspawn begins a dark ritual to claim the godhood he once declined. Can Imoen and her companions, riddled with age and weakened by the spellplague, face off against an elf who even Elminster fears?
1. Chapter 1

"Hello, Imoen."

The soft voice spoke straight from her youth, and Imoen smiled despite herself.

"Heya." She stepped through the jagged portal, gnarled hands clinging to her staff for support as she climbed over stones still glowing from a magical assault she herself had led.

"Alone?"

"It's just me." Imoen nodded, squinting across the ruined hall but seeing nothing. She raised a hand to send a sparkling wisp of light to cling to a ragged tapestry. The spell highlighted crumpled furniture and crumbling stone in pale blue.

"And are you sure that's going to be enough?"

Imoen's smile faded. "It's... good to see you, little brother."

There, perched atop a three legged table, sat Ravayu Atar, the saviour of Baldur's Gate, hero of Suldanessellar, and former scion of murder. His fingertips idly ran across the back of the aged cat stretched across his lap, its once black coat streaked with silver, showing the age its master wasn't. He gazed at her with the same dark rimmed grey eyes peering out from under the same scruffy black hair.

"Aye. I wish I could say the same." Ravayu pushed a strand of hair behind his slanted ear before tapping the cat lightly. It stood and stretched with a disgruntled yawn, sharpening its claws on Ravayu's tunic while presenting its backside to Imoen before finally crawling into a pack on the elf's shoulder. "Still, ascension is in vogue right now, isn't it? I suppose Elminster's hands are full right with old Larloch right now so he sent the three of you to kill me instead."

Imoen blanched. She'd agreed to go in first, hoping Neera and Jaheira could sneak in undetected if she couldn't… Well, she wasn't quite sure what she was going to do.

Ravayu hopped down from the table, the motion sending it tilting over with a crash that was deafening against the oppressive silence that stretched between them. Imoen flinched back behind her staff reflexively.

"It's a shame. I rather liked this tower." Ravayu gazed up at the glowing tapestry, harsh shadows falling across his sharp features. "So how long has it been since we last saw one another?"

"Since you stopped visiting." Imoen frowned.

"Can you blame me?" Ravayu raised a slender eyebrow as he looked her up and down.

"Well I'm sorry for making you so... _uncomfortable_." Imoen's own silver brows furrowed.

Ravayu snorted. "Fifty years too late for that, don't you think?"

"I shouldn't have to say I'm sorry for getting old, little brother."

"And I never asked you to. I never asked you for anything." Ravayu stood closer now, barely a sword's length away, though Imoen couldn't see any weapons on him. "I'm asking you now, though. Get out."

"You know I can't do that." Imoen gritted her teeth.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Is that what you said to Mazzy?"

Ravayu looked away, biting his lip. "She wouldn't listen."

"And you'd do the same to me?"

Ravayu chuckled, his eyes cold as he gazed back at her. "Guess."

"... You've changed." Imoen narrowed her eyes.

"No, I haven't." Ravayu pointed at his face with a crooked half smile that Imoen didn't mirror.

"Then why are you doing this? You let our father's essence go, you walked away."

"I walked with you. _You_ walked away." Ravayu snapped. "And this? This was always the plan."

"What?" Imoen's mouth fell open.

"I was a _baby_ , Ims. Not even fifty years old, and suddenly that was it? Join some human pantheon? _That_ would have been awkward." Ravayu shook his head, hair falling back across his face which he absentmindedly brushed back behind his ear once more. "Honestly I only planned to give it a decade or two, but then the spellplague came."

Imoen shuddered. The worst ravages of the spellplague were still fresh in her mind even now, the chaos, the collapse of magic itself.

"So... you just wanted divinity on your own terms?" She frowned at her sibling.

"I wanted a life!" Ravayu stepped forward, stopping just short of Imoen's wards. "And I tried! Oh how I tried. But- but you're all so… Brief! And the elves! Goddess save me from the elves. If they'd had their way I'd have been 'prenticed to some wilted sage for half a century. Me!"

Imoen nodded, fingers clenched tight around her staff. She'd heard his complaints before, a lifetime ago. " _Like a child!"_ he'd shouted, flecks of magical energy sparking from his fingers as he stormed around her in a huff.

"I thought I would change. I thought I'd grow up, gain some deep understanding, or… mature, you know?" But I'm still just me." Ravayu tilted his head, hair falling off the rounded stump of his left ear, a wound older than she was. " I never _learned_ to be Elven, Ims. And I'm a terrible human being."

"You were one of the best people I ever knew." Imoen stepped back, levelling the tip of her staff at Ravayu's chest. "Before you carried on _his_ experiments because you felt like you didn't fit in."

"Oh please." Ravayu rolled his eyes, still not bothering to draw a weapon of his own. "I went from apprentice to archmage in less than two years, you think after this long Jon's research means anything more to me than any of those lackwit sages who thought to educate me? Oh no, his methods were far too crude - and easily disrupted."

Imoen's eyes widened. "You-"

"Oh yes, it's still going on as we speak. My dungeons are surprisingly well fortified." Ravayu flicked his head towards a beshadowed archway with an indulgent smile. A bent candelabra flickered into life, illuminating a spiral staircase. "Ah ah, I don't think so."

He flicked his wrist before Imoen could take so much as a step, and a razor thin blade of blackness came between her and the stairwell, piercing neatly through her wards without so much as a moment's resistance. "You know, it's funny. If I'd taken the offer, maybe I could have saved Mystra? Maybe Cyric would have been so busy scheming against me that the spellplague would never have happened." Ravayu pulled his hand back, twirling the blade of nothingness in a lazy arc. "Maybe Aerie would still be alive?"

"You can't blame yourself for Aerie's death." Imoen edged back from the deadly sword, fresh protective spells flashing around her. Wasn't the black blade a lost spell?

"Oh, I certainly don't." Ravayu raised a hand and was lost within a kaleidoscope of identical copies, each merging and separating with one another as he stood. "But not to worry, I'll be having words with the one responsible in…" The legion of images each pulled a small hourglass from their pockets, where glittering crimson sand flowed upwards from the bottom bulb to the top. "About an hour?"

"No." Imoen's eyes widened. They had to stop that ritual. "Last chance, Rav. Get out of my way."

"You couldn't stop me in your prime, Imoen. You sure you can manage now?"

"I'm an archmage. I _am_ in my prime." Imoen swept her staff forward, sending a dozen magic missiles hurtling towards Ravayu followed by a wave of raw force. She saw barely the hint of a grin as the missiles rippled against an unseen barrier before the mage tumbled backwards as the force wall crashed into him, landing on his feet amidst the rubble before slicing it in two with his blade.

Imoen was already heading for the stairs, lips moving silently as she went, flicking a handful of dessicated spiders from her pouch across the rubble. A pair of giant spiders erupted from the earth, their furry mandibles dripping with venom as they hurled themselves towards Ravayu.

A bolt of blinding lightning scorched through the air before Imoen, leaving her stumbling backwards, clutching her eyes and leaning heavily on her staff. The room filled with the smell of burning hair, and a second later frantic chittering was followed by a hissing sound, and then… silence.

Imoen shook her head, blinking to clear her vision as she hurriedly spoke an incantation she could barely hear over the ringing in her ears. A bubble of shimmering colours blossomed around her, one of the few barriers left capable of standing against that disastrous blade.

"Did you really think you could just walk away again?" Ravayu's voice filtered through the sphere to her, almost bored. Several Ravayu stepped daintily around her, carelessly dragging their blades along the floor beside him. One of them left a deep furrow as its destructive force tore through the stone. The real one. "Seems my friends disagree."

Imoen felt a hand close around her ankle, chilling cold radiating out from where it touched and her strength began to ebb away. Reflexively she snapped the butt of her staff downwards to the ground, sending out a shockwave of thunder, and the hand released its grip. She peered down to see shadowy arms dissipating from the force, and still more shades crawled from the cracks in the stone outside of her shield, glowing green eyes the only feature on their faces as they circled her globe.

Ravayu raised his free hand, intoning the words of a spell in a sing song voice.

Imoen's eyes widened. Disjunction? Another lost spell. She raised her hand, a lance of hissing acid hurtling from her palm to strike the real mage square in the chest. Ravayu grimaced in pain, finishing the incantation through gritted teeth as smoke billowed from his tunic.

The moment he finished the last syllable a burst of magical energy blazed out from Ravayu's hand, his images winked out of existence, then Imoen's prismatic sphere, the blade of darkness and the candelabra, even the magical glow of the rocks dimmed before finally Imoen's light spell winked out, plunging the interior into gloom. Imoen reeled from the power, one of the magical rings on her fingers cracked and the stone's colour bled away to leave colourless glass.

Ravayu's pained breath came from the darkness behind her.

"Sic 'er."

Green eyes silently surged toward Imoen from every direction. She raised her staff, sweeping blindly at the charging shadows as she loosed a fiery burst from the other hand, . The head of her staff blazed brightly as she swung, revealing the growing tide of darkness pouring from every corner of the room. Ravayu stood amongst them, his hands moving to form another spell.

"Nature! Take the life she gave!"

Fire erupted around Imoen, blasting a mass of shadows to nothingness. A second explosion burst from the stones beside her as a tiny projectile shattered against the floor.

"Now it's my turn to save the day!" Neera's familiar pink haired form burst through the entryway, surrounded by a vibrant corona that both illuminated the room in fiery orange and seared any shadow that ventured too close. Jaheira followed a moment later, instantly hurling her last acorn at Ravayu. He slipped to the side, and it exploded on the wall behind him, igniting the table and sending shadows scattering from the heat.

"About time you two turned up." Ravayu leapt back onto the edge of the burning table, heedless of the flames licking at his boots as he slapped his palm against the soot encrusted wall behind him.

"It is over, archmage. Surrender!" Jaheira slammed her shield into a shade and drew her scimitar.

"What, no 'hello'?" Ravayu's fingers pressed between two stone slabs with an audible click. "I'm hurt. Why not stay awhile?"

"Get down!" Imoen barely had time to get the words out before the entryway behind them exploded into a shower of sharpened stone and dust, knocking her to the floor. Everything turned to choking darkness, and Imoen's consciousness faded.


	2. Chapter 2

"Imoen!" Neera's lined face appeared in front of Imoen's own, still surrounded by her flame shield. "Helloooo? Are you okay?" She reached out to take Imoen's arm.

"Agh!" Imoen recoiled from the burning heat.

"Oops, sorry! Let me…" Neera peered down and the flame winked out, plunging the room into darkness once more.

"Such foolishness child, be still! She is hurt quite enough." Jaheira's voice came from somewhere above Imoen, and a light touch on her arm was followed by soothing restoration. "There. Can you stand?"

"Keep… Keep your greaves on. I ache all over." Imoen snatched her staff from the ground beside her and pulled herself slowly up to her knees, the exertion making her head spin anew. She might have spent a good proportion of the hundred and forty years since her birth on other planes, where time flowed different and slow, but her days of dodging traps were still long behind her. Wait. Imoen's eyes snapped wide. "Where is he? Did he-?"

"The archmage disappeared as soon as he activated his trap." Jaheira raised her nose slightly, her jaw set. Of the three of them, Jaheira appeared the youngest, having stopped aging just as middle age had started to set in.

Lucky druids. Imoen gritted her teeth as she pushed herself to her feet, Neera's hand on her shoulder. "You don't need to worry, Neera. I'm alright." She leaned against the wall, pointing at the stairway, the stairs downwards now clogged with fallen stone. "He said the ritual is still going on downstairs. He said it would be ready soon."

"We still have time. You were only out of it for a minute." Neera glanced at the druid beside her. "Jaheira?"

Jaheira nodded with barely a hmph, striding forward with one hand in her pack. She pulled out a handful of clay, which she pressed against the fallen boulder, intoning a quick prayer to Silvanus, one of the few deities that still held true power after the spellplague.

After a moment of silence, the collapsed rock rippled and flowed like water, leaving a smooth tunnel leading down into darkness.

"You will be the last, and I will go first." Jaheira nodded to Imoen. "Be cautious. If he truly did not wish for us to follow then I have no doubt he would have had many better ways to keep us from our pursuit."

And with that she was gone. Imoen raised her staff, and light flickered from the end. She joined Neera at the top of the stairs, where she was peering down into the darkness.

"Do you think it would have killed her to give us some stairs?" The half-elf frowned down the smooth slope.

"Well, you know Jaheira." Imoen sighed, holding the light out to illuminate the passage. It followed the spiral of the staircase, she could see nothing further than that, and could hear nothing from Jaheira at the other end.

Neera held out her hands, gripping the sides of the shaft before letting out a sudden groan.

"What is it? Are you alright?"

"He's still _gorgeous_ isn't he?" Neera ran her fingers through her hair, now streaked with flecks of silver. "Ugh, so unfair."

Imoen smiled, sadly. "Yes, yes he is."

"And it's up to us to stop him." Neera shrugged. "Well... Geronimo!"

And then she was gone, vanished down the narrow chute. Imoen listened carefully for any sign that she'd made it, sparing a brief glance at the stairway upwards that loomed blackly behind her as she released an array of defensive spells.

Not so much as a whisper, and no sign of any of the shadows that had swarmed the area before.

Well, here went nothing.

Imoen settled carefully into the chute, and let herself drop, sliding down the slick stone at a magically sedentary pace before landing gently at the bottom almost a minute later.

Imoen raised her staff, illuminating a room full of disturbingly familiar glass cylinders that seemed to devour the light even as they pulsed with a baleful green glow.

"Jaheira? Neera?"

"Guess again, sister."

Imoen spun around with a yelp as a sword crashed against her wards with a spark. A massive skeleton stood before her, a greatsword held in its bony grip as it struck again.

"S-" Imoen stepped backwards away from the undead, trying to place the hollow voice. "Sarevok?!"

"In the flesh." Sarevok's voice creaked from the undead's grinning skull. "So to speak."

"What has he done to you?" Imoen sent a fiery burst into the skeleton, sending it hurtling backwards into the corner, where its pieces scattered.

 _"To be fair, he was long done with his body by the time I found him."_ Ravayu's voice whispered from inside her head. _"They all were."_

Sarevok's skeleton reassembled itself, strings of shadow binding it back together as good as new. As it stood, another skeletal figure joined him, this one's skull elongated and clearly draconian, skeletal wings trailing limply behind.

 _"Ah, there's Abazigal now."_ Ravayu's voice echoed in her head. _"Or was it Draconis? I know one of them went after Jaheira already. Oh, and looks like you've woken Sendai."_ A skeletal hand clacked against a cylinder, cracks growing on the glass as another grinning skull pressed against it, hollow eyes following her every move.

"Have you come to join us, sister?" Sarevok intoned, scooping up his rusted sword, which Imoen now recognised as the Sword of Chaos. "Such delicious irony that you of all people would help our brother finally ascend."

"Why would you do this?" Imoen asked, as much of the gathering undead as the ghostly voice that whispered in her ear.

 _"Recycling, mainly."_ Ravayu mused, as the pair of skeletons closed the gap between them, teeth chattering rhythmically. _"Enough to slow you down, at least."_

"We'll see about that." Imoen frowned and muttered a quick word of power, vanishing as the invisibility spell took hold. The skeletons stopped their advance, scanning the room with their empty gazes, heedless of the light still glowing from Imoen's now unseen staff. The pounding on the glass ceased.

Imoen slipped between them. Simple, mindless undead. Had Ravayu just used Sarevok's voice to unnerve her? She shook her head, creeping down the dark rows of cylinders until she found an open door, a splash of red blood by the handle. Imoen slipped through, quietly closing the door behind her before peering down a long corridor punctuated at regular intervals by ornate windows, a squat wooden door barely visible at the end of it, flanked by two guttering torches.

Imoen crept forward, poking her head around the first window cautiously. A young woman stared back at her, grey eyes wide with surprise. Imoen recoiled, and the girl did too.

Wait.

Imoen raised an invisible hand, pressing it against the surface of the glass, and her reflection, auburn haired and smooth skinned as if she'd just stepped out of Candlekeep, did the same, a frown growing on her face. Too young.

Too innocent.

"Scherf." Imoen waved her hand, and the mirror shattered. Down the corridor the other windows shattered one after another. broken glass tinkling over the floor.

 _"Vandal."_ Ravayu's dry accusation sounded more amused than annoyed.

"Get out of my skull, Ravayu." Imoen walked on, crushing a thousand broken images of her own face beneath her transparent feet. "I've done had enough of this."

 _"Like you couldn't just cast a spell if you truly wanted rid of me. But fine, I guess I'll go and keep Neera company then. Try not to be late."_

There was a sigh next to Imoen's ear, and she spun around, glass grinding noisily beneath her feet as she peered down the empty corridor.

She almost turned back before she noticed parts of the glass at her feet had been cleared away, revealing letters of bare, untouched stone beside a second set of footprints alongside hers.

 _TEMPUS FUGIT._

Imoen turned with a shudder and hurried on.


	3. Chapter 3

_"_ _I thought I'd check up on how you were doing."_

"Awww!" Neera clasped her hands at her chest before torching a zombie with a small plume of fire. "So sweet of you to care, but I'm a little busy right now, actually."

Another shade lurched towards Neera, ragged fingernails outstretched for her throat. As far as she could see, the natural cavern was filling with more and more undead crawling from the unbroken gaps in the unworked rock beneath. Neera raised her hand and muttered a command, scattering diamond dust that fizzled into nothing. A ritual circle appeared on the ground, and blinding light erupted upwards. Moments later, the shambling horde dropped as one, leaving the cavern still once more, but for the flickering torches on the far side.

 _"_ _Nicely done. You always were one of the only ones who could almost keep up with me."_ Ravayu's thoughts pulsed approvingly in Neera's head.

"I think you've got that backwards, don't you think?" Neera smirked, stepping over corpses as she made her way towards the distant archway.

 _"_ _Hah. Hardly. I always used to catch you. Remember?"_

"Yeah, because I always used to let you. Until... the last time." Her smile dimmed. It hadn't been the first time she'd left in the night. But it had been the last. The close of an adventure that lasted over half a century.

 _"_ _I didn't bother trying."_

"Bored of me?" Neera's lips tightened.

 _"_ _I knew why you left."_

Neera didn't reply.

 _"_ _It wasn't hard to figure out. Your seventy-fifth birthday the day before, wasn't it?"_

Neera still said nothing, fists clenching tighter as she strode across the stony floor. She couldn't let him distract her.

 _"_ _So I figured that you could have your midlife crisis. Let you come back when you were ready."_

Neera stepped through the archway, revealing steps, cut directly into the rock. Did this place go all the way down to the underdark?

 _"_ _But you never chased me, did you?"_ Ravayu's voice hounded her as she walked, not bothering to check for traps. She'd only find the ones he wanted her to find anyway. _"I followed you so, so many times. I tracked you through half of Sigil. I found you wandering the woods of Arvandor. And it takes you fifty years to track me down to my own tower?"_

"You were supposed to move on." Neera muttered, staring at a vast wooden door before her at the base of the stairway, living leaves budding from where the wood had warped and twisted to form a gap to step through. Jaheira must have made it at least this far. "Find someone new."

 _"_ _I know what you thought, elf."_

" _Half_ -elf." Neera scowled. He knew she hated that.

"And that's the problem, isn't it?" Ravayu's thoughts turned bitter. "No children, because I'd outlive them. Nothing serious, because you were never very good with serious. And eventually no you, because you couldn't bear to look at me anymore."

"That wasn't-"

 _"_ _I'm not stupid, Neera. I knew we couldn't last, and it's not like you would have killed yourself for me."_

"W-what?!" Neera's mouth opened.

 _"_ _Simple, isn't it? You could have killed yourself any time you'd liked. There were so. Many. Spells for that. Pick your age, pick your species, I could have made it happen, even after the spellplague. You could have stayed young forever, but you decided to leave instead."_

"Oo… kay. Between wanting me dead and having a hallway full of pictures of your sister? Thanks for making me feel a _whole_ lot better about our break up." Neera looked around, grinding her teeth as she gazed upon a room full of broken urns, mummified remains poking out from beneath ceramic shards.

"Oh, you don't believe me?" The words came from right in front of her. Neera blinked. Ravayu stood right there in the middle, crouching atop one of the shattered vessels. "Didn't you know the rules were different for _monsters_?"

Neera didn't waste a second, loosing a salvo of burning arrows at him with a sweep of her hand. Ravayu slid between them, his flesh rippling into solid stone as he walked toward her.

"I have learned so much, Neera." Ravayu raised a hand, sending a green beam of energy forward as Neera opened a summoning gate. The fiend crumbled to ash even as it emerged. "You could have learned it with me. You were one of the strongest mages in all of Faerun once, you could have hit me with a dozen meteor swarms in the old days."

"Hold that thought." Neera muttered a command phrase, and a summoning gate appeared on the ceiling above Ravayu, five burning rocks slamming down on top of where he stood, the blast wave sending fragments of bone and ceramic spinning across the room. Neera squinted behind a barrier of force as smoke filled the area.

"But you gave up." Ravayu stepped through the flames, stony flesh blackened with soot and crumbling in places. "You stopped trying and you left."

"You wouldn't stop!" Neera yelled, raising her hand and snarling out a guttural word of power. Black energy slammed into Ravayu's chest, sending him staggering backwards. "All those years and you just wouldn't stop! You just kept fighting and exploring and travelling, you'd never just stay in the same place and do anything _normal_. And now you're- I couldn't-"

"You couldn't stop me." Ravayu narrowed his eyes, now pools of liquid black. "I never knew _how_ to stop. All I'd _ever_ done was gain more and more power. And I never got old. I never got tired. _I never changed_."

Black tentacles burst from the floor, coiling around Neera's legs. Energy blazed around her as a contingency spell fired up and failed from the enchantments surrounding the dungeon.

"So-ghk!." Neera's reply was cut short as a tentacle wrapped around her throat.

"I thought you might understand." Ravayu stood, arms folded, staring down at her. "But how could you? Growing up in High Forest merely enhanced your… Humanity." He sneered at the word as Neera pulled at the magical tendril blocking her windpipe, head held facing him as her vision began to fade. She flexed her hand, a salvo of magic missiles slammed into Ravayu's chest at point blank range. He barely flinched, the tentacles certainly didn't.

"I am the Ruathar of Suldanessellar. I have learned magic from scratch three times, and treated with beings in the Far Realms so far beyond mortal reckoning that even their _name_ has power on this plane. I cannot take another millennium of this mundane existence."

The darkness was spreading out from Ravayu's eyes… Or was it just her own vision fading? Neera blinked sleepily as Ravayu's hand reached down and touched her face.

And the world went black.


	4. Chapter 4

"Jaheira!"

Imoen hobbled forward, a growing ache in her muscles. The druid knelt beside the remains of a vast black statue, stone hands still gripping the floor where they'd torn long furrows into the stone.

"It is good to see you are still well, child." Jaheira stood, sheathing her scimitar and holding her hand out. "Yet Neera is not with you?"

Imoen shook her head and stepped up, allowing Jaheira to touch her. The cuts and scrapes from traversing the underground complex closed with a glow of positive energy. "You're the first thing I've seen since… since the first chamber. I'd hoped she was with you."

Jaheira shook her head with a frown. "I have battled through a legion of the archmage's creatures to reach this point, but I have seen no sign of Neera. Perhaps she took another corridor?"

"Perhaps." Imoen made a face and looked down at the statue once more. "Is that a Marut? Did you-"

"No, I did not defeat this construct. This was a servant intended to preserve the balance of life and death. It seems his crimes have found more attention than just ourselves."

Imoen frowned. What had he been doing? She'd sometimes needed to help Ravayu do the right thing. Sometimes by smacking him around the head, back when they were younger. He was short-tempered, self-interested, and arrogant. He had even managed to get himself onto Tyr's divine writ of retribution by slaying dozens of paladins… But… But he hadn't been _bad_. He'd spent his life fighting evil. Saving people. Saving her. Those paladins attacked first. Everyone _always_ attacked him first. And his response was swift and terrible.

Had Mazzy attacked him first? Nobody had heard anything of her after she came here.

Had Neera?

"Imoen?"

"Sorry." Imoen shook her head. "Just thinking. Let's go. Neera can… catch up."

They continued in silence down further into the cavern, Imoen's thoughts heavy as they strode through a battlefield of broken statues.

"Why don't you use his name?" Imoen broke the silence at last, climbing over a finger bigger than she was with magically enhanced grace.

"I considered him a… friend, once. Even after we parted ways, I argued with the Harpers to let him live, that he was no threat to the balance." Jaheira's grim expression remained unchanged as she waved her shield hand across the scene of carnage all around them. "That was my mistake. I will not make it again."

"But-"

"Hush. I see something ahead." Jaheira pointed to something outside of the light of Imoen's staff.

Imoen nodded. Most of her defensive wards were still active, and she still had most of her spells, even if her earlier encounter with Ravayu had wrung some of her best from her.

The pair crept forward, and in the light of her spell, Imoen finally saw what Jaheira did. Dark figures undulated and writhed in unison, knelt amidst a giant network of runes that flickered blue as the light spell passed over them.

" _Imoen."_ The whisper rippled through the dark and up Imoen's spine.

Jaheira drew her scimitar, but the figures didn't stop their dance, paid no attention as she padded towards the closest figure. Imoen watched a safe distance away, staff ready, as Jaheira moved from one to another, before hurrying back, a haunted look on her face.

"They are mostly people, some monsters too. All bound by enchantment to act as they do."

"That's horrible." Imoen looked across the shadowy figures stretching as far as she could see in the gloom.

" _Imoen."_ The murmur crept from mouth to mouth once more, and untold pairs of glowing eyes turned to look at her, like stars in the dark. Just watching. Staring.

"I don't have a spell that can free them. Not any more." Imoen stepped back nervously. If they attacked, they wouldn't have any choice but to blast their way-

The floor beneath her blazed white. All across the cavern the runes beneath the figures surged into life, illuminating the cavern like the sun was shining within. Imoen hopped off the rune with a start, but it stayed lit, a line of brilliant white leading off towards a shining silver wall, where stone shapes sat upon a raised platform.

"The ritual. We must hurry." Jaheira charged forward, shield held before her as she stepped between watchers.

"Right." Imoen held out her hand, and the weight left her body. She pushed off the floor and flew through the air after Jaheira, trying to ignore the eyes watching her from below.

Imoen arrived first, landing just shy of the platform. From here, the stones were immediately recognisable, she ascended up onto the platform, reaching out to touch the closest one, the symbol of Mystra on its surface.

Altars.

Seven of them. Mystra, Helm and Tyr on one side, Mask, Vhaeraun and Bhaal on the other, and in the centre of the seven, a small silver haired obsidian statuette stood upon an altar of Eilistraee, the goddess Ravayu had favoured before she was slain.

They were worshipping dead gods.

"Jaheira, you should come look at this." Imoen looked around. "Jaheira?"

The druid knelt beside a small armoured figure, who stared up at Imoen, lined face placid beneath an open faced helm, green glowing gaze unblinking.

"Mazzy?"

"My magic cannot rouse her." Jaheira sighed, pushing herself to her feet. "I had hoped to gain another ally in this place, but at least he did not deal with her in a more permanent fashion."

Imoen nodded, though the sight of her old friend was unnerving, to say the least.

She turned away as Jaheira climbed the stairs to the platform, staring at the white glowing lines that lead from every worshipper to a wide circle around the altars. And from the circle, a single line led away, to the wall. Partially reflective and slightly curved. Something ticked in Imoen's mind, a distant memory...

"Dead powers?" Jaheira gripped her scimitar. "This is how he is fuelling his ritual? Stealing worship like a vulture?!"

Imoen wasn't listening. Floating an inch above the ground she drifted towards the wall, hand outstretched.

"Same bloodline." Imoen murmured to herself, pressing against its smooth warm surface.

And a hatch opened in the side of the planar sphere.


	5. Chapter 5

The interior of the planar sphere was bigger than Imoen remembered it. The ceiling was an endless field of stars, while the floor was slick reflective obsidian with dark shapes rippling across its surface, surrounding Imoen's reflection as though to choke it out.

And in the centre of the room, Ravayu sat cross-legged between two enormous mirrors, playing a simple wooden pipe. His clothes and hair looked even less tidy than they had been before, the signs of spell damage clear on his body. The knot in Imoen's stomach grew tighter.

 _"It took you long enough."_ He didn't stop playing, his words just slipped directly into Imoen's skull.

"What have you done to Neera, you fiend?!" Jaheira stepped up beside Imoen, face a mask of hatred.

 _"See for yourself."_ The right hand mirror spun around to face them, revealing the pink haired half elf suspended within, eyes closed and hands outstretched as though crucified by unseen bonds. A moment later, the mirror turned back to face Ravayu. "But I imagine you're more interested in the ritual?" The elf reached the end of the song, and with a flick of his wrist the pipe vanished, replaced by the hourglass he'd held before, talking normally now. "It's going great. Assuming you can't kill me, in ten more minutes I'll be out of your hair anyway."

"And at what cost?" Jaheira charged, scimitar raised. "All of those people out there, enslaved to your madness! The balance destroyed!"

"Blind as ever, harper." Ravayu stood, and the hourglass changed once more to become a long, silver rapier with which he batted aside Jaheira's attack. "There is no _balance_. The world just keeps breaking. Over and over again. Did you forget where I come from? Where _she_ comes from?" Ravayu pointed at Imoen with his blade as he side stepped Jaheira's thrust, ducking a scorching ray from Imoen's staff only for Jaheira's back swing to slice across his shoulder.

"The time of troubles." Imoen mumbled, slowly drifting towards the mirror as she scoured her memory for a spell that might hit the evasive elf without catching Jaheira in the blast.

"The time of troubles! That's right." Ravayu raised his free hand, hurling Jaheira tumbling backwards to the corner of the room with a burst of wind. "And not even half a century later, the spellplague! Gods dying left and right, the weave itself crumbling away yet again! There's your balance, Jaheira. Do you even have the perspective to know how bad that is? Your average elf has seen _five_ world changing cataclysmic events by now. The realms can barely get out of bed each morning without a band of adventurers making sure the sun keeps rising."

Jaheira hopped back to her feet, morphing into a grizzly bear as she charged once more. A column of flame accompanied her roar, leaving a scorch mark on the floor where Ravayu had been standing.

"So I wondered. I've held the power of one dead god." He stepped through the smoke unphased. He snapped his fingers, and Jaheira's charge was cut short as she slammed into a solid wall of force. She stumbled and fell to the ground, stunned, and the wall then closed around her on every side.

"And now they're dropping like flies. And most of the pantheons lost their power, their domains. Where do you think it went? Bhaal showed me that power doesn't just disappear."

"So you stole it." Imoen raised her hand, chanting the words to her spell.

"I channelled i-" Ravayu's mouth froze in mid sentence.

Imoen sped across the floor to the mirrors, slamming her staff into the one holding Neera. Cracks appeared across its surface before timelessness reasserted itself, and the mirror froze in the middle of its destruction. Imoen lowered her staff, hurriedly casting spell after spell. A whirling cloud of flame, two delayed blast fireballs, and as the time stop ended, a spray of prismatic energy that crackled towards where Ravayu stood, eyes widening slightly as the incendiary cloud ignited around him.

Neera dropped to the floor with a groan, shards of glass falling all around her. She slumped and stayed still. Imoen glanced to where Jaheira where she remained incarcerated, in normal form now as she pounded at the walls of her cage with her scimitar.

An explosion erupted from the burning cloud. Then another.

"And when I ascend-" Ravayu emerged from within, singed and limping, but still standing. "I will take my place in the Seldarine."

The force cage expired, dropping Jaheira to the floor. She screamed as black hands surged out to grab her, dragging her beneath the surface as though it was water. A moment later her reflection appeared in the remaining mirror beside Imoen.

"Or maybe I'll carve myself a place with the Dark Seldarine? Goddess knows I owe Lolth for what happened to Viconia." He kept walking towards Imoen, black eyes weeping tears of darkness that spread across his skin, tendrils of smoke rising from his body. "And I will fix everything."

Imoen raised her staff, but with a flick of the wrist from Ravayu an invisible hand wrested it from her hand, sending it clattering across the room. "You don't need to be a god to fix things, Ravayu."

"Oh?" Ravayu arched a dark eyebrow, still walking towards her. "Then prove it and stop me."

"You said it yourself." Imoen felt Ravayu's telekinetic grip around her wrist as he stood before her, black gaze unreadable. "The sun keeps rising. We can still make a difference, even now, if we keep trying."

Ravayu shook his head, motes of darkness drifting from him. "Do you remember before the spellplague? How strong we were? I could reshape the universe with five little words. I became different creatures one after the other just because I could. The six of us were among the strongest adventurers in the multiverse. Elminster came to _us_ to help with the things he couldn't handle. I could shape shadows into miracles more real than those from the gods themselves."

Imoen nodded, working a mage hand spell of her own behind her back. A long sliver of glass lifted from beside Neera's foot.

"And then the weave fell. Aerie died screaming. Even Viconia lost her spells so she couldn't survive something so simple as _poison_." Ravayu shook his head. "And I did what I always did. I dragged poor Neera around half of Toril. I wandered the plaguelands trying to find a cure. I scoured the feywilds looking for hope. And all I found was shadow."

Imoen closed her hand around the broken shard of mirror.

"Until I found the essence of the divine. Every exarch, every broken realm, every dead god drifting in the beyond I started giving back life. I can change the cosmos, make my _own_ weave. One that won't break every couple of years. I can stop you-"

Imoen thrust forward, feeling the slightest resistance as her makeshift blade slid into Ravayu's chest.

"-from having to die." Ravayu collapsed against her hand. Imoen staggered under his weight, pulling him with her as she knelt on the ground. The sword fell from his hand, hourglass smashing against the floor.

"You bufflehead." Imoen wiped away tears streaming down her cheeks as Ravayu stared up at her, darkness fading from his eyes to leave them grey once more - the same as hers. "You stupid, stupid bufflehead."

"I'll miss you, Ims." A bubble of blood popped on Ravayu's lips, dark liquid staining his tunic around the shard.

Imoen brushed back his hair. It was as though he hadn't aged a day since they left Candlekeep, the same wild trickster who dragged her around half of the Sword Coast. Who rampaged through Amn to get her back and turned his back on godhood without a care in the world just to spend more time with her.

"I never... thought of you as a sister, you know."

Imoen stiffened as he raised a hand, but it fell limply back to his side. Ravayu slumped back.

"Just as… 'mine'. I guess. My little Imoen following me around with a teddybear in one hand and a thumb in her mouth. Stealing my spellbooks…and... making the world... a little less dark." He coughed, more blood trickling down his cheek.

"Why don't you stop this? We can save you. Just stop the ritual."

"I wouldn't... know how." Ravayu's eyes drifted closed. "Just… Pray for me, Ims. I'll... see... you... soon."

Ravayu Atar, the saviour of Baldur's Gate, hero of Suldanessellar, and former scion of murder, breathed one last, shuddering breath, and crumbled into snow on her lap, leaving only a small backpack atop the swiftly melting pool.

Imoen sighed as the second mirror shattered of its own accord beside her, dropping Jaheira to the ground with a muffled curse. She opened the pack and pulled the familiar from within onto her lap, scratching its chin as the stars above began to blink out one by one as somewhere, high above, the ritual came to an end.

And lowering her head, Imoen closed her eyes and began to pray.


End file.
